Passing the Police Officer Exam: Basic arithmetic questions

Another type of question that sometimes appears on the Police Officer Exam is the basic arithmetic question.  Each of these questions will ask you to solve a word problem that requires some simple calculations.  These questions are more common than the analogy questions mentioned above, but they are still less common than most of the other questions mentioned in this guide.  You may not see any of these basic arithmetic questions on the exam; be familiar with what to expect from these questions in case they do appear. 
 
Read the entire problem
Read the entire problem before you do anything else to identify the question and the information that you need in order to answer that question.  These questions are designed to trick you into missing the information that you need, so it can be very easy for you to misunderstand the question or make the wrong calculations if you haven't read the problem very carefully.  
 
Common mistakes
The options for these questions may try to trick you by offering you an answer that seems correct because you made a mistake that people commonly make by missing a number, making the wrong calculation, or making a common math error.  
 
Example:
A problem reads:'Mrs. Victoria Dales called 911 after she was attacked and robbed in Celestial Park by an unidentified man.  Officer Jones responded to the call and took an inventory of the items that were stolen from Mrs. Dales upon arriving at the scene.  According to the information provided by Mrs. Dales, the man stole her new $50 purse, which contained $75 in cash, an engraved ring that she had just purchased for her husband, 3 theatre tickets to a new musical called 'Don't Even Think About It,' and 2 necklaces for her nieces.  If the ring was valued at $425, each theatre ticket was valued at $75, and each necklace was valued at $25, what is the total value of everything that was stolen?'  
 
Options: (A) $650(B) $700(C) $750(D) $825
 
The correct answer is option 'D.'  The total value of everything that was stolen is equal to $50 + $75 + $425 + 3 tickets * $75 + 2 necklaces * $25 or $825.
 
The other options are incorrect because they each offer an answer that you might arrive at if you missed an important number or instruction.  
Option 'A' is incorrect because it ignores the word 'each' in the question so it identifies the amount that would have been stolen if all of the tickets were worth $75 together and both necklaces were worth $25 together instead of $75 for each ticket and $25 for each necklace.  
Option 'B' is missing the value of the purse and the value of the cash, which is a common mistake because those numbers are in the problem and not in the question.  
Option 'C' is incorrect because it ignores the word 'everything' in the question so the value of the cash, which must be included, is missing.  

As this example demonstrates, some of the options for the basic arithmetic questions will attempt  to trick you by offering answers that seem correct because you did something wrong.  In order to make sure that you choose the correct answer, you should read each problem very carefully and double-check your answer before marking it on the answer sheet.
 
Simplicity of problems
Remember that these questions are usually very simple even though they are designed to trick you.  The designers of each version of the Police Officer Exam realize that you only have a very limited amount of time to answer each question, and most versions of the exam will not allow you to use a calculator so you will only have about 1 – 2 minutes to make the calculations for each problem on paper.  These questions won't require you to make any complicated calculations in order to find the correct answer, so if you think a problem requires some complicated approach, review the problem because you have probably missed an important instruction or detail.